CC BY-ND 2.0 A. Jones Think global, act local. Protesters around the world—like the folks in Albany pictured above—are increasingly demanding that we “keep it in the ground” when it comes to fossil fuels. There are tentative signs that the powers that be in certain parts of the world are finally beginning to listen. While we’ve seen plenty of coal mines and other fossil fuel extraction projects run into permitting and planning issues in the past, this has usually happened because of localized impacts such as water or air quality, noise pollution or other concerns about how it might harm the local community. Something different just happened in Australia. Bianca Nogrady over at Nature reports that, for the first time ever, in that country at least, a court has rejected the opening of a coal mine specifically on the grounds that it will add to global greenhouse gas concentrations at a time when we need to be bringing them down rapidly . Nogrady quotes chief judge Brian Preston who, in his ruling, explicitly stated that the project should be refused because: “The greenhouse-gas emissions (GHGs) of the coal mine and its product will increase global total concentrations of GHGs […]
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